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I think I’d like something that doesn’t make me wanna kill kyself.
real
It’s software development. You get your stupid little Jira tickets like little quests and you get to solve them however you see fit. And then they get put on the deployment belt and run through all the checking steps in a satisfyingly rigid way. And then you’re done with them and you don’t have to think about them ever again. It’s the perfect cycle.
Your mentioning of Jira alone gives me the shivers. For some project I had to use it, and it sends you like a hundred emails a week.
That’s easy, just filter them away in a separate folder and never look at them
Yeah I know, but why do I have to jump through a hoop to get a normal user experience?
It’s atlassian software 😅
You cannot imagine how much must go correctly to end up in such a blessed state. And if the stars do align, enjoy every single one of those ephemeral minutes because inevitably, the PM leaves, there is a re-org, and the PM replacement who never touched jira before and has never delivered software is steering the team one week at a time without spending any time putting in the work to make jira smooth. I hate jira. It is a real skill (read: tolerance for bullshit) to arrange shit so that work is well organized. And it is massively missed when absent.
You get a JIRA Ticket
“Customer says X doesn’t work”
Try to reproduce the issue
It clearly works
Get to find edge cases and do 10 roundtrips with customerMany such cases
Or, JIRA ticket: complete the entire 18 month project
Honestly I don’t mind this one that much. IFF it is well designed, the entire team is in the loop of what’s to be done, and you don’t get immediate unrealistic time pressure.
I’ve always preferred working on JIRA tickets that were meatier than having to work on 15 different tickets in one day. The context switch just eats a bit too much energy for me every time.
I wish it was like this. But instead were getting tickets with barely a title. Or there’s a report that the application misbehaves ones or twice per month with no reproduction steps, fix it. Or the delivery schedule is set, but there are no feature roadmap or milestones to track what is yet to be done and if we are on track. Or the project manager has got their position because they sucked at coding and the company couldn’t figure out what else to do with them and you have to keep explaining basic technical decisions over and over to them. And everything will come back haunting you as long as you are in the company. One ticket keeps being resurrected for you because client keeps changing their mind on how it should work or keeps finding more esoteric edge cases. Or you’re roped in to some legacy project over and over again, because you managed to do a minor fix for it two years ago and you’re the only one left who has ever touched it.
I’m a manager with an engineering background, and this is exactly what good managers should solve for you. I love Jira but I know it sucks to configure correctly. Your problems are not because of Jira, but managers fucking up the process. But more than Jira (love it or hate it), this is about organization: People don’t know how to do their jobs correctly, decisions not being made by the right people or the right time (or not at all), too much planning and not enough execution or vice versa, people not empowered to say no, all that stuff. Everybody always hates on management but it’s a thankless and tough job to keep the whole operation running smoothly. It’s like that old IT joke “everything is working already, what do I pay you for? vs nothing is working, what do I pay you for?”
The curse of competence
It’s perfect when you know the application inside and out. A completely different story when you get dropped into a project that uses sixteen frameworks and libraries, including widely employed features that are barely documented. You get to do guesswork on whether this pattern is recognised by that library, while your system is constantly swapping under the weight of dozens of browser tabs with the docs and StackOverflows.
So, it’s an adventurer’s life from your typical isekai. I see. Makes sense now. Only that the things asked are never clear, change midway, the finish conditions keep being altered, the validation at the end keeps being enforced differently or that 3 weeks later someone will ask about the thing done and you have zero memories of that place. Or that because you did it one time now it will always be pushed onto you, even when you don’t want it anymore. All of this while slowly killing you on the inside. Yep. Perfect.
Software testing checks all those boxes
so does accounting, oddly enough
I’m struggling to think of any decent professional jobs beyond data entry that don’t tick the boxes
Maybe not if your manager is a cunt but you can get that anywhere
4/4 jobs I had were not ticking both boxes, either not structured enough or boring as hell
Were you unable to structure your days? That’s a bit rough
Yes, there was sprint planning and kanban, even release schedules. But it means nothing when you have multiple managers all expecting deliverables on the same day the issue is found. I had a flight or fight response to teams notifications well over a year after that job.
On the other end, there were weeks and months of literally nothing to do but I had to make it seem as there was a lot to work on and reporting on it daily. Made me suffer more than if there was actual work to do.
Stable, but not boring
You sure?
I’m an auditor, so I come across some interesting stuff
I’d say it depends on your interests.
But generally the kinds of inspecting someone elses work is usually entertaining in the profession you work in.
Find a client who needs to keep two kinds of books, it’s gonna be pretty exhilarating.
Documentation management for me, especially end-user-facing KB type stuff. Mmmmm boy do I like making information accessible.
Sadly never really a stable standalone job, mostly just something I take on for fun wherever I work.
Cybersecurity was great for that before the AI-pocalypse.
I run a small window cleaning company, no high rise.
It hits the spot. Jobs are on rotation, consistent, predictable. Work is adaptable, requires active problem solving, easy to notice what’s finished and what needs detailing.
I did customer service for 14 years, and I thought I hated working. Turns out I just hate stupid people and wasted effort.
I’ll work hard, if it makes sense.
ahh, that’s beautiful. Gives me hope
I found out by luck, and I’ve been much happier ever since.
Teaching meets all of these criteria. The one it doesn’t meet is “make enough money to survive”
It’s shameful how the US treats its teachers.
It’s shameful that teachers are treated wildly differently based on zip code.
Yeah I’m AuDHD myself, got the diagnosis in my late thirties after finally seeking help after burning out at my seventh engineering office job. Stimulant medication has helped a lot with the ADHD side of things, but I’m just done with office jobs at this point. It’s possible things might work better with another one, this time with proper medication and support. But I’m just done. I’ve spent so much time and lived through so much misery trying to be productive in engineering office roles that I have some degree of PTSD about the prospect now. At this last job, even though I didn’t know what was happening, my subconscious sure did. I quit in a panic after three days and had to be convinced to come back. I gave it another shot and made it nine months before total burnout.
I need a new career path. And I needed to try something different. And I think teaching is it. Prior to this year I have some experience teaching undergraduate students and doing a lot of K12 tutoring, but my K12 classroom experience was limited. To explore this path, I got my substitute teacher’s license over the summer. This year I’m substituting basically every day, and honestly I’m having a blast.
It works with my brain in a way almost nothing else does. Mine is more the inattentive form of ADHD than the hyperactive form. I really struggle with executive function and focus when working on long repetitive tasks, especially those with no immediate value. I’ve studied engineering extensively, up to the doctoral level. I love it as a subject. I love teaching it. I love learning it. I love applying it in hands on ways. But stick me in a cubicle and ask me to grind out calculations all day, day after day? I break. By the time I reach burnout on the job I’m basically catatonic, staring blindly at a screen or wall, disassociating the whole day away. That’s what office jobs are like for me. Hell. And I say office job, but the actual setting is irrelevant. I’ve tried work from office, work from home, and hybrid. It’s the work itself that is the problem, not the environment.
But teaching? Substitute teaching is hard. There are days that I leave frustrated, as some classes you just can’t ever get any traction on. There are some classes I’ve taught that no matter what techniques I use, I simply cannot get them quiet enough to teach. There are days when the kids really get to you, and you wonder how some of these kids are going to possibly survive in the real world without just immediately ending up in jail the instant school isn’t covering for them.
And yet, I wouldn’t trade my worst day substituting for my best office day. (At least any office day past the first few months, when I’m usually able to maintain focus when things are new and the learning curve is still steep.) Teaching just works so well for my neurology. The regular schedule. The defined work and work hours. The immediate feedback and sense of purpose in your work. It’s everything working as an engineer in a design office isn’t.
Yes, the money sucks. If I substituted every single school day of the year (not really practical), I would make 40% of what I made doing engineering work. If I go enroll in a program, get a formal teaching certificate, and become a proper teacher? 60%. But honestly, I don’t even mind. It’s not like the engineering salary is really a sustainable thing to begin with. Thankfully I at least have a spouse that is able to make the engineering life work, so we’re fine no matter what. But it would be really hard to make ends meet doing what I am now if it were just me.
Teaching is such a joy.
I’ve had a few solid options for my audhd ass.
- video game QA testing
- union organizing
- dry lab genetic research
I seem to subconsciously know what to look for, because I’ve only had 1 job where I hated the work. Grocery retail wasn’t bad, but pales in comparison to these. Granted union organizing has a lot of bad surprises, but the ideological bent more than compensates
Hence programming being popular with AuDhd folks
And kitchen work.
Lots of routines, rules and systems. But you’ll never do the same day twice.
Plus everyone else loves drugs as much as you do.
Man, I had a sweet spot job before i moved. I was effectively a gofer, just doing whatever the management wanted me to do. They understood the limits of my abilities and drip fed me with responsibilities and raises. I worked at my own pace and usually alone. Some times i was at my desk for hours doing paper work or researching. Other times i was running around all over the place to pick up supplies, or rescue coworkers with supply drops, or help with a broken vehicle, or just help ith the work on site.
It seemed like there was always something new to tackle, but everything felt doable. And also i got to listen to podcasts/music pretty much whenever i wanted.
That sounds great
I was a custom picture framer, that fit the bill if anyone’s looking for recs
Where are you based? Are you hiring? And what’s the income?
I traveled a lot, there were shops in NOLA, Iowa, and Houston I went back and forth between. The reps for the products knew me and could recommend me to the shops in whatever area I wanted to go. It was great there for awhile. I’ve been fully disabled since 2010 though, and at that point I was a manager, but still only made $10/hr. The cost of owning a frameshop and supplies makes it pretty hard to pay employees what they’re worth, regardless of how the owners feel about you as an employee. If you want to get started in the industry though, I would ask around different shops and see who has time to train you. I ended up liking to work for The Great Frame Up brand bc their miter saw is German and much less likely to chop limbs off than the chop saw a lot of private owners use. One of my former bosses almost lost her arm that way.
Mechanic,
Every day is a new puzzle that at the end of the day fits into the box exactly as it should.
No matter how out there and strange the problem always makes sense at the end. It’s so rewarding
Not to mention people are optional. Some of the best mechanics i know don’t talk to customers they have a receptionist who deals with that
They’re typically called Service Managers, not receptionists.
The good ones do a lot more than take info and pass it between the mechanics and customers. They know a lot about troubleshooting and can help give a ballpark estimate on cost and time. They also typically sell the general stuff like tires, brakes, batteries, etc.
Tho in some places they actually make more than the mechanics, cause they’re there to upsell, not assist. You want to avoid those places as much as possible.
Yeah my bad service manager is the better wording.
Though to also play devils advocate as I know people who do it they literally have receptionist to just answer the phone and do nothing else.
The great service managers know what questions to ask. Customers say the dumbest things. It’s the difference between a mechanic getting"Customer states it makes a womph womph sound sometimes." and “Customer states it makes a Womph Womph sound when they’re trying to get on the highway.” The first one could be anything the second one points to a transmission problem. The mechanic still needs to diagnose it, that’s not the service managers job but they can make it a lot easier.
I was about to say, welcome to the trades unions! Show up at 6am and do a manual labor puzzle!
Try being a handyman, nearly perfect for getting new problems to solve, flexible, the project is usually done the same day if that’s the scope of work you want, or take some bigger things if you want a project for a month.
Honestly pretty rewarding fixing things up, I’ll never not get dopamine when I manage to get something ticking, or make a wall look nice, or whatever it is I’m trying to mend.
I was just about to say that this almost perfectly describes my job as a handyman.
And one which doesn’t involve using a phone
This is why I’m stuck as a line cook 🙃
Most people I know that work in restaurants could be on the spectrum or have ADHD. You get really good at doing a lot of small different things and you have to remember about 5 things at a time. I opened my own restaurant last year to add both extra boringness (paperwork) and extra scaryness!
I think I have this kind of job, and yet I want everything to just stop. Everything. And I am not autistic nor have ADHD. And I can’t even ask anyone for help, because I am not supposed to. I did try asking for help. I was either ignored or was told that I shouldn’t ask for help.
That doesn’t sound like the best work environment. If I ask for help, I get it. If my colleagues can’t help, I call my boss (tell him jokingly to put the wine down and get off his ass) and get him to fix the problem.
Actually it’s the best environment I’ve been in. It’s not directly about work. I am my problem.
I did try asking for help. I was either ignored or was told that I shouldn’t ask for help.
How are you the problem?
Some things are supposed to fall on me. I should be able to handle some things as a person. Yet I feel like a burden on everyone and everything. This is not about my job. Everything else is shit. And I’m worried it’s affecting my job a little.
You might also be experiencing burnout, because some of what you describe sounds very familiar to me. Devon Price has written a lot on the topic.
If you are indeed burnt out, then that’s a tricky situation, because I’d argue that burnout is rarely the fault of the person experiencing it, but a consequence of far too many demands being placed on us for an extended period. For me, the root of my burnout was trauma and an extended period of housing instability — stuff that was fundamentally unfair.
Living under late stage capitalism is making an increasing number of people struggle with burnout, and few of us are afforded the privilege of being able to take sufficient time to rest and recover from it. So even knowing that one is burnt out doesn’t necessarily help too much. Despite this, I find it helpful to be able to understand that a significant portion of my struggles originates external to me, and that whilst I feel like I am the one who is broken, I am actually experiencing a reasonable response to unreasonable circumstances. Even if it doesn’t change much, I think it’s better to be angry at the right things.
It is burnout (too). I’ve been experiencing a lot of instability which got worse in the past few years. Trauma as well.
One or two things that could have gone okay and make most things bearable, if not fixable, took terrible turns and kinda broke me mentally.
I blame only myself though, ultimately, because a little foresight and mental strength could have spared me a lot of trouble.
“I blame only myself though, ultimately, because a little foresight and mental strength could have spared me a lot of trouble.”
My gut instinct here is to say that it sounds like you’re holding yourself to too high a standard. Perhaps there were things you could have done differently, but were they really things that you could have reasonably foreseen and enacted while you were in the moment?
I know that for me, better paths that I can see now through hindsight were often ones that were either invisible to me at the time, or things I had considered, but felt utterly incapable of actually enacting; there were many better paths available to me that I would’ve only been able to go down if I had been at “full health”, so to speak. And so looking back, all I can do is lament the circumstances that led me to be in a situation where the strength and wisdom required of me was more than I could muster in my exhausted state.
It’s a common instinct of those who have experienced trauma — to look back on what we experienced and agonise over what we could have done differently. I think the reason for this is that for as varied as trauma and its causes are, at the heart of most of it is a loss of control or personal agency. That’s the factor that seems to elevate distress into capital T Trauma.
It can be reassuring, in an odd way, to blame oneself for the events that caused the trauma, because it allows us to construct a narrative in which we had more control than we actually did in that situation, which can create a sense of safety in the aftermath. But unfortunately, not everything is a scenario that can be learned from and prevented in future — sometimes awful things happen that we couldn’t have reasonably prevented or handled much better than we did. Sometimes simply surviving the ordeal is an impressive achievement, which sucks to have to admit. Certainly, the thought makes me feel quite vulnerable.
However, the sense of safety that one gets from blaming oneself for past events is a fragile kind of safety that can impede long term healing. You’ll never be the same person you were before the events that led you to this point, but it is possible to heal enough to build new futures — whilst also grieving all the possible futures you lost. I also want to emphasise here that whilst I might sound like I have my shit together in this respect, it’s an ongoing journey for me too, and if there’s anything I’ve learned, it’s that recovery is a slow and non-linear process. A lot of the wisdom in this comment is stuff that I spend a lot of time trying to properly internalise and incorporate into my own life.
Though I do concede that, given that I know nothing of the events that caused you so much so strife, it’s entirely possible that there are things you could’ve reasonably done at the time, even without the benefit of hindsight. Even so, I don’t think it’s useful to actively blame yourself for what happened. What has happened has already happened, and you’re already suffering for it through the consequences of that period. Beating yourself up about it is effectively like giving yourself double the punishment than you would rightfully “deserve” (and “deserve” is in quotes because I still think it’s likely that you’re not nearly to blame as you think you are). And looking at this pragmatically, if “the beatings will continue to morale improves” was going to help you get your shit together, it probably would have worked by now.
Whether it was past you to blame, or circumstances beyond your control, effectively, the situation you’re now in is that your capacity checking account is running low, and you have a huge backlog of “bills” to pay. It is possible to come back from that kind of situation, but you’ll never be able to get back the time or resources that were lost to this extended ordeal. That sucks, and it’s unfair, but to ruminate on things you could’ve done differently is just throwing more time onto the pyre.
If therapy is something that’s potentially accessible for you, then I’d strongly recommend it, as healing is much easier with professional help. If that isn’t an option for you (and I know it isn’t for many — it certainly isn’t for me), then at the very least try to forgive yourself for what happened. You can’t change what’s in the past, but you do deserve a future that’s better than your present. Even if you were 100% to blame for what happened, I would still believe this to be true.
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Stoicism helped me a lot. I can recommend Happy by Derren Brown.
Imposter syndrome is common.
Yes. I do have to go back to reading stoics. There was a time I myself recommended it to others. Thank you. I wish it was the imposter syndrome.
